“Ah, but it is different if you have to earn your own living! If you are a governess, for instance, people don’t care about what you look like, but about what you know.” He stroked his mustache meditatively, looked at me, and said-- “Of course; I forgot that. I suppose you have to know a lot to teach. I am sure you know more than any woman in this room.” “Oh, no, indeed I don’t! They are all a great, great deal cleverer than I am. I couldn’t talk as they do.” “Heaven forbid!” muttered he, as if to himself. “They know how to chaff--that’s all. Did you ever meet any of them before?” “Never before to-day.” “I wonder if you know any of the people I know? Do you know the Temples of Crawley Hall?” “No.” “Have you ever been farther west than this--Staffordshire--Derbyshire?” “No, never.” He was looking on the ground; he raised and fixed his eyes suddenly on my face as he said-- “Do you know the Dalstons?” “N-o,” said I, rather hesitatingly. “Not Lord Dalston, with his different crazes? You speak as if you were not sure.” “I am sure I don’t know him,” said I. “But I was trying to remember what I have heard about him, for I seem to know the name quite well.” In the most gravely persistent manner Mr. Carruthers went on probing my memory about Lord Dalston; but I could not even remember where I had heard the name mentioned before. He had to give it up at last; I believe however that he thought it was obstinacy that prevented my telling him. When, at last, long past the hour when the household at the Alders retired to rest, we dispersed to our rooms, I made a mistake in my corridor, and found myself in one which led to the servants’ wing; and I heard a man’s voice that I knew saying persuasively-- “Don’t be in such a hurry! She won’t be up for half an hour yet, nor my man either. I never get a word with you now.” Suddenly it flashed upon me whose the voice was. It was the voice I had heard talking to Sarah in the plantation, the voice of Mr. Rayner’s mysterious friend. And the person he was talking to, and with whom he proceeded to exchange a kiss, was Lady Mills’s maid! It was a strange thing, but one about which I could no longer have a doubt. The respectful man-servant I had met before dinner in the corridor and the visitor who was shown into the study at the Alders as a gentleman, and who was yet on familiar terms with Tom Parkes and Sarah, were one and the same person! I was very sleepy and very much preoccupied with this curious discovery when I got to my room; but, before I went to bed, I put, as I thought, my beautiful but unfortunate pendant safely inside my desk, resolved not to wear it again. CHAPTER XVII.